“This is what extermination and genocide looks like” — Sharon Zhang reports on what people are finding in areas of Gaza made inaccessible by Israel’s siege.
Israeli attack on Gaza, Oct. 7, 2023. (Ali Hamad of APAimages for WAFA, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)
By Sharon Zhang
Truthout
Palestinians and aid groups in Gaza are returning to areas made inaccessible by Israel’s siege only to find that entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, with even basic infrastructure like wells for water destroyed by Israel’s carpet bombing campaign.
“We have been driving for the last 10 minutes here in Jabalia [refugee] camp, and I haven’t seen a single building standing,” said Gloria Lazic, a worker for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in a video posted by the agency on Tuesday.
Before the genocide, Jabalia was home to over 119,000 registered refugees, according to the U.N. Now, after an intense Israeli siege of northern Gaza, piles of rubble and trash line the streets, with only some concrete frameworks of bombed-out buildings left erect.
“The situation is a nightmare for people trying to return,” said Lazic. “The area is full of unexploded bombs and ordnances that need to be disposed, and people don’t have time to wait. They want to come back home. They’re pitching tents in order to be as close [as possible] to what used to be their homes.”
North Gaza Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif also reported from Jabalia, posting a video of the camp where the only thing in sight was masses of destroyed buildings. He warned that the ceasefire is far from enough to support Palestinians as they return to neighborhoods without houses or any other basic infrastructure.
“These areas have been reduced to rubble, with thousands of homes destroyed. The situation is dire: A complete lack of water and basic infrastructure. No displacement shelters, tents, or caravans,” Al-Sharif said. “Families returning from the South are facing catastrophic conditions, with no access to even the most basic necessities.”
Though Israel is supposed to allow families to return to their homes in northern Gaza as part of the ceasefire deal, Al-Sharif reported that some families have been returning but then leaving again after finding no resources and no homes to return to.
Israel’s invasion of northern Gaza was particularly intense, but none of Gaza has been spared.
Israeli forces have destroyed over 90 percent of homes in Gaza amid the genocide, causing damages that experts say will take tens of billions of dollars and decades, if not hundreds of years, to recover from; the U.N. has estimated that just clearing out unexploded bombs could take 14 years.
The Israeli military’s destruction was funded in large part by the U.S., which provided a near-endless flow of bombs and other weapons to fuel the assault.
Gaza journalist Abubaker Abed reported from Al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza on Wednesday, saying, “I cannot really see any inch without total destruction. Families are returning to the area and scrounging for any place to live or anything to salvage.”
“Total destruction. That is massive obliteration. This is what extermination and genocide looks like,” said Abed.
Similarly, the U.N.’s OCHA said its workers returned to a former critical health facility the agency had in Rafah, in south Gaza, to find a shell of a building.
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) posted footage of Rafah showing city blocks turned to dust, saying: “Homes, hospitals, schools, including UNRWA premises — no place has been spared.”
Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter and Bluesky.
This article is from Truthout.